If there is a debt in your past you stopped hearing about, it did not evaporate. Somebody probably bought it for pennies. And if that somebody ever got a court judgment against you, they can still come for your paycheck, your bank account, or your car, long after you stopped thinking about the balance.
April Washington lost her truck over roughly $1,200 in credit card debt that was almost 20 years old. Paulette Parham’s Toyota Camry was taken over a $3,000 debt from 2007. GBH News reported both in a 2024 investigation of Avon businessman Andrew Metcalf and his debt-buying companies.
On September 2, that story got an ending. Massachusetts filed a proposed settlement in which Metcalf surrenders his debt collection license and forgives a portfolio of about 6,500 debts with a stated total balance near $53 million. The agreement provides for judgments to be vacated, liens on homes to be released, and seized vehicles to be returned. A judge still has to sign it. Metcalf was ordered to pay $650,000, suspended based on his financial condition, and due immediately if what he told the state turns out to be untrue.
Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell’s line: “thousands of families in the Commonwealth will be provided with debt relief.”
Here’s what the headline number hides
Not the $53 million. The mechanics that got it there.
Metcalf’s firms filed more than 1,800 lawsuits since 2017, mostly in small claims court, where debts of $7,000 or less go. Between 2019 and 2022 they pursued nearly 14,000 people and collected about $4.1 million from roughly 3,745 of them. Buy dead paper cheap. File in volume. Most people never show up, because a summons over a card they closed in 2007 does not feel real. The court enters judgment anyway.
That is the whole trick, and it is legal in every state.
Once a judgment exists, the argument is over. The collector is no longer holding an unpaid bill, it is holding a court order, and court orders come with tools: garnishment, bank levies, a lien on your house, a constable at your car. Nobody has to re-prove the debt was yours or that the paperwork survived four owners.
Do this now
If you get served over a debt you do not recognize, answer by the date on the summons. Not calling is what turns a disputed $1,200 into a truck on a flatbed. Legal aid is free and this is exactly what it is for.
If a judgment already exists against you, find out what your state lets a creditor do with it and for how long. Those rules are state law and they are not short. Ask before you make a payment on an old account, because in some states a payment can affect the clock and you want that answer from an attorney, not a collector.
If you are in Massachusetts and Champion Funding or Judgment Acquisitions Unlimited ever sued you, watch this docket. Vacated judgment, released lien, returned vehicle: that is what real relief looks like, and it is worth chasing.
And if you are carrying old balances that have not gone to court yet, deal with them while you still control the terms. Run the balance and rate through our loan calculator before you take a consolidation offer, and read our loans hub on what a collector can and cannot do.
Verdict: good day for 6,500 people in one state. For everyone else, the useful part is not the settlement. It is the reminder that a default judgment is the most expensive thing you can get by ignoring an envelope.
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